Nothing but supply side growth is going to solve the country’s housing concerns. Restricting development to curb gentrification is futile.

Housing, zoning, energy and transportation decisions should be pulled back to regional levels. Population density is increasing and NIMBYism doesn’t solve the problem, it just shifts the problem to a neighboring location. Letting cities make decisions without consodering regional needs makes things worse. Just look at what happened in San Francisco. In the 70s they decided to downsize land use and zoning.

But then the whole world changed and cities started growing again. The problem is that we have locked in place the rules and culture from these early ’70s preservation movements that today make it really difficult to add housing.

When will we all realize this is not good for humans, it’s not good for animals, and it’s not good for the planet.

“I wouldn’t say it is dysfunctional,” Weaver told me. “More like it is functioning very well for the companies and their executives only, and very poorly for farmers and consumers.”

Poultry farming now is entirely different from what it was when I was a farm kid in Oregon with our family flock of chickens. Today’s business model is infinitely more efficient, but it also raises environmental concerns such as antibiotic overuse and is fundamentally oppressive for animals and farmers alike.

When even chicken farmers say that the system has failed, it’s time for consumers to use their buying power to push for food that causes less harm to everyone, human and bird alike. If we can rally on behalf of a frightened dog in Orlando, can’t we also muster concern for billions of farm animals — as well as the humans struggling to raise them?

Another article hitting the same notes about income inequality and what we are missing about discussions of the value of labor and where the country should head.

We’ve got to stop glamorizing entrepreneurship and innovation. And we’ve got to stop seeing this path as the solution to our problems. This is not to say that higher ed, innovation, startups, small biz, and entrepreneurs aren’t necessary. They’re just not the solution nor should they be the goal for the majority of people. That’s like asking every high schooler to bet on a major league sports career as their future path.

We need to recognize the value of the ‘Maintainers’, the labor force that drives this country. We don’t need to put them on a pedestal, and we don’t need to cry about lost manufacturing jobs, but we need to make sure that this large group in the middle is doing well. Their work keeps the country afloat, not the innovators. We need to make sure they earn their share of the profits. We need to support policies which keep these wages growing not shrinking over time.

nothing against “innovators” such as Jobs and his ilk—it’s just that “maintainers” are doing so much more. “The vast majority of technologies that surround us and underpin our lives are not innovations,” Vinsel says. “And the vast majority of labor in our culture is not focused on introducing or adopting new things, but on keeping things going.”

The staff came across some articles which articulate what we are missing about inequality in most of our conversations. Labor is the bedrock of our economy and we should treat it as such. We should compensate it as such.

We often say that higher education isn’t going to solve our equality issues. Some folks aren’t meant to seek degrees. Besides if everyone had degrees the marginal value would be much.

We need to talk about a world in which labor itself is valued more equitably. If you put in a solid 8 hours a day your pay should be sufficient to sustain a modest life. Every year that becomes less and less realistic.

we need to focus more directly on labor-market policies that increase people’s earnings and increase the steadiness of their jobs. In the end, fighting income inequality is about fighting income inequality. It’s not about closing educational gaps or getting more people married, or creating a diverse pool of Fortune 500 CEOs.

If where you end up is totally dependent on your parents, or a set of random circumstances over which you have no control, and there’s no individual description of how you get to a stable place in the economic system, then we’ve lost the narrative about how to get ahead. And that’s where things get dangerous

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Healthcare, healthcare, healthcare. Nobody is ever really satisfied. It’s just a crappie system her in the US. It’s little surprise that providers don’t like the light being shined upon their pricing practices.

It’s also little surprise that the more transparent the pricing and quality are the lower the cost is to patients.